


gender troubles

by fluffysfics



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Sentient TARDIS, ThoscheiLockdown2020, ThoscheiTreatLockdown2020, Time Lords don’t do gender, dysphoria mentions, human gender is stupid, racism/sexism mentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:34:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23287111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffysfics/pseuds/fluffysfics
Summary: The Doctor and the Master have a discussion about their TARDISes, fashion, and why humans really are the worst sometimes.Written for the prompt: 13 and Dhawan!Master having a discussion about gender (Bonus points for Thirteen experiencing either physical or social dysphoria)
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 92
Collections: Thoschei Lockdown The First 2020





	gender troubles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThoughtsCascade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThoughtsCascade/gifts).



“Why _do_ you call your TARDIS ‘she’?”

The Doctor slid out from where she’d been tinkering with the underside of the console, and sat up. The Master was perched on one of the steps nearby, looking thoughtfully up at the glowing crystal pillars that arched above them. 

“What?”

“You always talk to your TARDIS like it’s a woman. It’s ridiculous. It’s a Time Lord ship, it doesn’t have a gender. _Time Lords_ barely have genders.” 

Sighing, the Doctor removed her goggles, letting them dangle around her neck for now. “Don’t really know. She likes it, so that’s what I call her.”

“Your TARDIS is probably dysfunctional. The navigation in the corridors alone should be enough to prove that. Took me half an hour to get to the toilet the other day.” 

The Doctor threw a small spanner at him. He ducked it, and it clattered against the floor. The Master looked up at her with a ‘what did I do to deserve that’ pout. 

“Don’t call her _dysfunctional_. She’s just different. I like her the way she is.”

“Of course you do. Eternal collector of freaks.” 

She hefted another, considerably larger spanner, shooting him a threatening glare. 

“Fine. Sorry. Collector of... _oddities_. Can’t deny me that one.” 

“You calling yourself an oddity now?” She quirked her head to the side, shooting him a grin. The Master just rolled his eyes, and the Doctor laughed. 

“Still don’t get how a ship can have a gender. Even a sentient ship. _My_ TARDIS certainly didn’t. Doesn’t. I’m assuming it’s still out there somewhere.” 

The Doctor pressed her lips together at that, wondering where to take the conversation in a direction that didn’t lead to the Master arguing that he deserved his ship back. He’d agreed to stay with her for his own good, he was still recovering from having a dangerous Cyber- _thing_ removed from his head, she definitely didn’t trust him to go gallivanting around the universe on his own. And she liked his company. She was never going to admit that one to him, though. 

“My TARDIS is just as sentient as you or me,” she said eventually, reaching up to stroke the console and feeling her ship hum happily in return. “Why shouldn’t she have a gender? Are you saying you don’t?” 

The Master considered that for several seconds, which was honestly a lot more thought than the Doctor had expected him to put into bickering with her. “Not really.” 

“Not really?”

“Not really. I don’t think. What’s a gender supposed to feel like, anyway? If it’s anything definite, I couldn’t give less of a shit what my body looks like, so...draw your own conclusions from that.”

“So you’d be completely fine regenerating into a woman again? It wouldn’t be even a bit weird?” The Doctor drew her knees up to her chest, resting her arms on them and then resting her chin on her arms. This was proving to be a surprisingly interesting conversation, and it wasn’t an argument, and she needed more good conversations with the Master. 

“Not even a bit. Missy was fine. Did I ever _look_ like I had a problem with being a woman?”

That was a fair point. He’d seemed perfectly comfortable with it, at the time. Pleased, even. The Doctor shifted slightly, and tried not to consider her current regeneration too hard. Honestly, she was fine with it, she liked the body, it was nice. But maybe pleased wasn’t the word she’d use. 

“You’ve gone quiet, Doctor.” The Master leaned forward. Sensing her troubles like a shark sensing blood, as always. He was incorrigible. She expected him to say something else, but he didn’t, which was worse. He knew she couldn't stand long silences. 

“Don’t think I’ve ever been that fine with being a woman,” she admitted, avoiding his gaze. “I mean, I am. I like this body. Don’t want to go around changing it or anything. Just wish people would be a bit nicer to it.” 

“Oh.” The Master looked her up and down. ”Is that why you dress like a circus clown this time around, all rainbows and baggy trousers? No...actually, you always dress like a circus clown. Or a magician. Perhaps those are your genders.” 

This time, he didn’t manage to duck the spanner she threw at him, and it pinged off of his shoulder and clanged against the floor. He laughed, which was not the desired reaction at all. 

“I’m never opening up to you again,” she grumbled. “Not if you’re just going to insult my fashion choices about it.”

“Oh, calm down, dear.” The pet name earned him another laser glare, which the Master just smirked infuriatingly at. “I’m teasing you.” 

“Yeah, well, don’t.” The Doctor lay back down and pushed herself back under the TARDIS console, feeling thoroughly put out. That had been a nice conversation, an interesting one, and she’d even thought he might have some words of advice for her. Maybe. And then he’d had to go and ruin it by- 

She suddenly felt strong fingers around her ankles, pulling hard, and a moment later she was staring up into the Master’s face. 

“Don’t _sulk_. Save the sulking for your human pets- _friends_. Human friends. I’m...sorry. About the teasing.” 

Ignoring the fact that he looked slightly pained by having had to apologise, that was a decent way of making amends. Decent for him, anyway. The Doctor sat up again, and looked into his eyes. They were nice this time around, all big and brown and sad and very hard to stay angry at. 

“Apology accepted,” she said against her own better judgement, and patted a spot on the floor next to her. The Master seemed to hesitate, then shook his head slightly and sat down. 

“So,” he said. “You don’t like being a woman.”

“That’s not what I said!” Ooh, that was a bit defensive. The Doctor hadn’t realised this was quite such a touchy subject for her. “I just- don’t like how people treat me because of it.”

The Master studied her for a minute, in a manner that made the Doctor feel like a science experiment, and not a particularly successful one. She was just about to snap at him to _stop that_ when he spoke again. 

“In my experience- wear more lipstick. Dress like you’ve just killed a man. Carry something large and pointy enough to make that aesthetic a reality if necessary.” He grinned, with far too many teeth to be an actually pleasant smile. 

“I like these clothes. And I’m not killing anyone, you know that. And lipstick tastes weird. All...fishy.” 

“I don’t want to know why you’ve been eating lipstick, Doctor, so don’t even try and tell me.”

“I haven’t been- ugh, never mind. Is that _really_ all the advice you’ve got? Because ‘change everything about myself’ isn’t very encouraging.” The Doctor drew her knees up to her chest again, avoiding the Master’s gaze. 

“I’m not encouraging you. Just telling you what worked for me, because you asked.” He shrugged. Then, after a minute, he reached out and brushed her hair away from where she’d been using it to curtain her face. “You could always just stay away from Earth, too. Most other planets don’t give a _shit_ about the length of your hair, the pitch of your voice, what you’ve got between your legs. Or if they did, they grew out of that nonsense as soon as they started building civilisations.” 

“I like Earth,” she said, definitely not pouting. “They’re brilliant, humans. So clever. So brave. So-“

“Sexist,” the Master said, and she swatted him on the arm. 

“Not all of them. Just...enough to make things difficult. I guess.” The Doctor shook her hair back into her face. The Master, to his credit, left it there this time. “I like this body. Really. Not as clumsy as my last, runs a lot better. The hair’s good, and it’s young. I like it. But- you know the head of MI6 mistook _Graham_ for _me_?” 

The Master spluttered, then laughed, loud and a little mad. “How? There’s you, in your- rainbows, and ridiculous trousers, and that fool goes for the old man dressed like someone’s least favourite grandparent? I wish I could say I was surprised to learn that C was a misogynist as well as a racist, but... I’m not. Human bigotry comes in bundles, I suppose.” 

“He was a what now?” That caught the Doctor’s attention, and she flicked her hair out of her face and frowned at the Master. 

“Oh. Yes. Ridiculous old man _hated_ O. I assumed it was because I was younger and cleverer than him, but there were...whispers. Snide comments. One too many requests to leave the room and go fetch him and his friends coffee, which I spat in, by the way. Just- _little_ things.” He scowled. 

The Doctor thought privately that maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that the Master had taken it upon himself to shoot C dead. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, meeting his eyes. “That’s awful.”

“Oh, don’t give me the pity look. I’m fine. We were talking about _your_ problems, come on. Your inability to accept yourself is far more interesting than my light struggles with petty human bigotry.”

“Don’t phrase it like that. I’ve accepted myself. I just said, I like this body.” She liked its practical functionality, anyway. There were some specific parts that she just...hadn’t looked at, yet, and didn’t much intend to unless someone else (the Master, definitely him, although she wasn’t going to think about that right now) made it so that she had to. “The only thing I don’t like is how people treat it.”

“Well. If you won’t take my advice, I’m not sure there’s much you can do to stop shitty humans treating you like a second class citizen.” The Master was looking at her again, but there was something else in his eyes. Something softer. “...If it helps, I like this body of yours, too.”

This could very easily turn into the sort of disgusting flirting that was going to make the Doctor shove herself back under the TARDIS console for the next three hours and send the Master to his room for the foreseeable future. But the way he was looking at her... She tilted her head slightly. “You do?”

“Yeah. It’s...handsome.” He sounded like he’d put thought into that word choice, like it was something carefully and artfully considered. 

The Doctor, for her part, felt heat rise to her cheeks immediately. “I- um- thank you,” she stuttered out, and a wicked grin spread across the Master’s face. Okay, now she was definitely in for some teasing. 

For once, she thought she might not mind being teased. Not many people’s opinions really, truly mattered to the Doctor, but the Master’s was one of them. Always had been, ever since they were children. And if he could compliment her like that, somehow she felt a little better about facing down any humans who might happen to disparage her for what she looked like. 

This body was strange, and new, and _different_ , but hey- everything was easier to navigate with someone by your side who _understood_. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for the fic title, acclaimed feminist theorist Judith Butler


End file.
